About Khelbiros

Converted

Thanks for the feedback. It's helping me figure out the game and setting.
More updates! We finished making characters and We started a small introductionary adventure.
The player who read the book complained about the 'mined' bronze in the setting, and said this sort of ruins the standard bronze age enconomy of trading/making bronze. After some discussion, we got the game going agian.
The player with the Darkness/Law/Death runes changed to Darkness/Communication and Argan Argar.
Some more questions!
Should the ability 'Initiate of [Deity]' be a standard ability or a breakout under a rune? In the example characters, it looked like a breakout, but it's not really a spell. I thought only spells went under runes.
If spells are specific breakouts under runes, does that mean that they're cheaper than buying normal abilities?
Can other abilities suggested in the template (e.g. Characteristic) be stand alone abilities or breakouts under other abilities? One character had the characteristic as a breakout under occupation.
We were confused about what was convered by occupation skills and what was covered by general abilities. A PC with a hunter occupation wanted a specific sneaking ability and we weren't sure where to put it. I ended up ruling that occupational skills were more about knowledge and players should stuff like hunting and and fighting as specific abilities.
The PCs did standard adventury things like hagging, tracking and exploring. They failed a lot of the rolls, as I kept rolling higher than them. We discussed whether to) only have PCs roll without the GM's roll, or to only roll for something important and significant. The two rolls does mean that you get lots of marginal victories/defeats.

@Steve - Thanks for the clarification. I'll pass that onto the group.
@Jajagappa - Thanks for the thorough feedback and response. Here's some responses in point form:
Robust list of skills - Maybe I can start compiling one if this mini campaign is a success. Some players did like the freeform list. There are just some people in the group who like preset lists for things like this.
HP - I might try it by the book and see how the group likes that. It's a similar experience/benny point system to Numenera, which they didn't like, but we'll see how it goes this time.
Clan Questionnaire - I agree that the myths are chaotic. However, I could structure questionnaire around Greek mythology so we could see the progression of the myths throughout time e.g. Void -> Titans -> Uranus -> Cronus -> Zeus -> Olympian Rule -> Various demigods/mortal wars. However, I do believe that in it's current form, the questionnaire isn't good for new players. If the idea was to get new players interested in Gloranthan mythology and retain that interest, it wasn't a good fit due it its unclarity. For example, a Star Captain shows up in one of the answers. There's no context - is this a spirit or a guy with a spaceship? However, if the questionnaire introduced these concepts slowly instead and had context, it would be a lot stronger as a 'learn Glorantha' tool.
Wyters/Treasures. These suggestions look great! I'll rework some of the abilities and clan treasures.
Some more background; after two of the characters have darkness runes, and trolls are the clan's only allies, I've put the clan in the Torkani tribe.
I'll drop by and give another update after the next session

Well, we did clan and character creation last night. Here's some post-mortems!
Clan Creation Questionnaire
My suggestion for those who were thinking of using the clan questionnaire to introduce new players to the setting is.... don't! Overall, the group founded it confusing and even for the mythology buffs, it was hard to piece together the oral history of the clan due to the lack of context. The clan appeared to get reformed and broken many times. Gods are described as dead and then show up again in the next question. The 'mythic style' of writing we found awkward and hard to parse. There were some odd grammatical/sentence constructs. We were doing the quiz round-robin, and people were picking some odd answers for the clan Wyter powers. We had a few laughs, but I think by the time the clan's storyline became coherent, people just wanted to push through and were picking odd answers.
I think it's good idea, but think that the clan quiz needs to streamlined and made more approachable for newcomers to Glorantha. At least before I'd use it again. I'd have something that clearly details the mythic progress of the clan through the ages.
I've got the somewhat nihilistic clan report here for those interest: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QexzmZ5sWA5IcLNuvVHGRVjzUp9sfMf_l1gdp2lEN8g/edit?usp=sharing.
I'll edit this a bit before the next session. With the Wyter powers, should these be the clan treasures? Let me know if you've got any emergent plot suggestions/ideas for the clan.
I agree with the advice above to skip all this stuff, build characters, and then fit the clan around them than the other way around.
Character Creation
So we started to make characters using HeroQuest Glorantha. Some points:
One player wanted a robust list of abilities to pick from, rather than having to make them up. Is there such a thing for list-orientated players?
Why do breakouts cost 1 ability point in character creation, but are half the cost with XP? A player was arguing that these no mechanical benefit to taking breakouts in chargen with ability points, and you're better off picking only main abilities doing chargen and breakouts when you get to XP.
After picking runes and everything, another player was frustrated that none of his runes (Death, Law, Darkness) were encapsulated by a single god on the list. His preference would have been to start with a god and work backwards to get a collection of runes that could have all been activated for spells. (He likes reading a book and understanding the entire ruleset before making up a character, so I've given him the HQG book for the week.) Is there are Death/Law/Darkness cult?
Is there a preferred house rule to decouple Hero Points from XP? My preference is for players to spend their HP points on boosting rolls, and just to get a flat amount of XP each session. What should this flat amount of XP be?
Let me know if you've got any suggestions. Cheers.
Next Session
I plan to finish character creation, get each PC to add some NPCs to the clan, and to do short, starting adventure.

Hi everyone,
I'm going to run a short game (four or so sessions) with my current RPG group. I've got HeroQuest Glorantha and the two Sartar books. The group hasn't played HeroQuest before, and all they know that it's a 'bronze age' style campaign. Is the best way to start with the clan questionnaire in the first Sartar book? It does seem a bit long - if anyone has tried it? Is it the best way to build a clan? Should the group agree on each answer, or just one person do one part of the quiz at a time to keep things moving?
To get the group invested in the setting, I want them to design their own clan and build in characters that link to it. Otherwise, I was thinking of something like how the Dresden Files book has you building the PC 'world', where everyone contributes a fact or conflict about the world.
Let me know what the best way to start this off would be.
Cheers.

The commercial character generator Hero Lab has been updated for 7th edition Call of Cthulhu. It's a robust program for generating characters, managing their growth, tracking equipment and there's even a combat tracker.

Chaosium announced a new online character generator, The Dhole's House, for CoC7! I've played around with it and it didn't take long to make up a new character sheet PDF.
https://www.dholeshouse.org/Default
There's a G+ group for feedback and updates: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/108394060966260336873

I had good results with Crimson Letters; it's in the back of the 7th ed book and very flexible. If you run it as a short game, remember to increase the tension by following the haunting advice in the adventure. It's a strong investigative adventure but increasing the sightings gives it a bit more omph.

I was wondering if there were any plans for a free HeroQuest QuickStart, along the lines of the Call of Cthulhu QuickStart, with basic system rules and a scenario? I'd like to get some people interested in the game, and having a free QuickStart would be a great way get them interested in the system.